PETA upset over cockroach eating at Six Flags Great America promo

One man's publicity stunt is apparently another man's outrage, as the activist group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on Six Flags Great America to cancel a live cockroach-eating contest planned for next month's Fright Fest. Those taking and successfully executing the challenge will be given four Fast Lane passes, which allow entry to the front of the line at any ride in the park. The eating will take place in the Southwest Territory's Mission Stage on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Jeff

vacoasterfreak

Monday, September 25, 2006 12:11 AM

lol Jeff took the words right out of my mouth. i swear, some of the things PETA has done in the past are just laughable....several years back they actually had a campaign going to ENCOURAGE drinking on college campuses, in an effort to DISCOURAGE drinking milk!!! i kid you not, look it up sometime...i heard about it back on the radio years ago. anyway...this is hilarious, lol...but not suprising coming from the morons at PETA....

coasterguts

cyberdman

Monday, September 25, 2006 7:11 AM

Since when is an insect an animal? Give me a freakin' break. I am sure none of those PETA freaks have ever eaten a bug ... rumor has it we all eat 8 spiders a year while sleeping any way. ;) No one is in uproar over that. Hell, even the FDA allows for a certain level of insect fragments to be present in food, see here: http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html .

millrace

Monday, September 25, 2006 7:50 AM

Oh please, insects *are* animals!

I saw this one coming. PETA really grates on me, and I am somebody who cares very deeply about animals. But PETA has proved time and time again to have a very poor grasp of reality and virtually no scientific understanding of ecology, or even general world food issues.

Majorcut

Monday, September 25, 2006 8:05 AM

I hate PETA as well. It's funny that they don't want people to eat animals and yet they eat vegetables that was grown with animal waste on them. These are the same people who will drive down the rode in cars and wear leather. I remember when they had a nude protestor down in Chattanooga a few years ago because people was eating at Chick-Filet. They was expressing ideas that was out of this world. There must have been around 200 people standing around her and laughing thier heads off at thier beliefs. Of course the sign was covering up the vitals.

During this whole time, we was all eating chicken and hamburgers in front of her and the nutcase friends she brought in from out of town. It seems that it is mainly brainwashed young people who are doing all the talk for this group. Too bad they don't know the truth about how the world is really.

Nitro Dave

Monday, September 25, 2006 8:39 AM

While I do respect people who care deeply about animals, there's a certain line that needs to be drawn somewhere -- not because certain animals are more important than others, but because there are just more relevant animal-related issues than eating cockroaches. Where were these people when Fear Factor was still on? Why weren't they as vocal then, or did I just miss it?

Animal rights groups in general just seem to be ridiculously out of touch with really important issues. Either they have nothing better to do, or there really aren't any other issues they need to address; regardless, pursuing this just makes them look absurd. Groups like these were in uproar several years ago during the filming of a scene in The Shawshank Redemption, in which a bird eats some maggots. The group (I can't say for sure if it was PETA) actually had someone on set to ensure that the maggots died a natural death before allowing the bird to eat it. Because it can happen every day in nature, but heaven forbid we allow it to be caught on film.

millrace

Monday, September 25, 2006 9:07 AM

The problem is they oversimplify the issues to the point of absurdity. I was involved with an open space land trust and conservation organization for a while and you wouldn't find a group more dedicated to natural preservation and ecological principles. But the group was also in support of deer hunting which put us at odds with the local animals rights crowd.

They didn't care that the deer population was over sustainable levels. Overcrowding and a lack of food resulted in deer that were sick, diseased and malnourished. Nor did they care that the sheer abundance of deer was wreaking havoc on the natural environment by eating nearly edible wild plant resulting in a severely compromised ecosystem paving the way for a proliferation of non-native species and generally making life for every other animal in the forest miserable.

No, to the animals rights people, the deer were natural and we should let them die a "natural" death through suffering. They also refused to believe that the deer overpopulation was caused by human activity. Killing the deer may be "cruel" to the individual deer but letting things continue the way they were is cruel to uncountable other animals

Killing a bunch of deer is unpopular but is sometimes necessary to restore balance when human activity puts things "out of whack" compromising the integrity of the entire environment. Seems to me that an animal rights person would understand this. But they only seem interested in their own human experience, which is, perhaps, the cruelest thing of all.

Colin Fisher

Monday, September 25, 2006 9:21 AM

Freaking A. Lol, I hate PETA. They sued my company (Petsmart) and ended up winning, resulting in us having to stop selling the larger birds. They have to but in and stop everything. It REALLY annoy's me what they do. Men have been eating meat for the last...4000 years? yeah? And now they don't want us eating cockroaches? Come on. They need to go complain to Fear Factor or something. Seriously, cockroaches are delicacies on other contries.

janfrederick

Monday, September 25, 2006 11:07 AM

I wouldn't go as far as saying I hate PETA. Thier goals are noble. And I'd imagine this is simply a move to get press. But smart? Probably not. Nutty? Sure. Kinda stinks to have nuts try to represent your beliefs (and I for one would eat a living cockroach in order to score those passes).

As for the deer situation, sounds like a Cougar breeding program would have been in order.

rollergator

Monday, September 25, 2006 11:54 AM

^ Agreed. PETA, ideally, would stick to those things where it makes SENSE for them to get involved. Making a huge case out of stuff like this only reduces their credibility, and hurts them when they DO try to tackle more important issues.

Cruel and unnecessary product testing on animals? Damn right! People eating bugs? Probably could spend your time and efforts on better causes... ;)

Juggalotus

Monday, September 25, 2006 12:36 PM

Nitro Dave - It was probably the ASPCA (I think that's who it is anyway). That little note you see at the end of movies "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" is only allowed to be put there by them. They have someone on set to monitor how animals are treated, and only if they're satisfied can the label be put on there.

Not sure how that works, as they aren't a government organization so I don't know how they regulate that.

And everyone, please try to remember that there is room for all animals -- right next to the corn and mashed potatoes.